


Beneath Your Heart

by madgrad2011



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Compliant, College, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, POV Lydia Martin, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 17:27:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9668567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madgrad2011/pseuds/madgrad2011
Summary: MIT is her dream school. It has a robust mathematics program and more than a dozen world-renowned researchers that can assist her with her analysis of the Riemann Hypothesis... So what if it’s 2,412.7 miles closer to George Washington University than Stanford?Lydia and Stiles navigate a long-distance relationship.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started out as a short one-shot about Lydia deciding to go to MIT. I'm not quite sure how it evolved into something this long or this personal... But, I hope you like it. I really, really do.
> 
> This fic has a drawing by [lydiahmartini](http://lydiahmartini.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, an aesthetic by [hollandroden](http://hollandroden.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, and a place card by [songof-light](http://songof-light.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.

[corpus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P2rOfQNSlw)  
(ˈkôrpəs) n. [Latin] 1. the main body or corporeal substance of a thing;  
2\. a collection or body of knowledge or evidence

* * *

His warm tongue traces her collarbone and her breath catches.

"Stiles,” she stutters breathily, arching her back to press her chest against his. Her thighs tighten around his waist as his fingers dip under the hem of her shirt.

“Fuck, Lydia,” he moans, his swollen lips grazing her flushed skin. She runs her fingers through his hair, tugging lightly as she rolls her hips up to meet his. Stiles grunts a little at the sensation, his forehead tucking into the crook of her neck and his hot breath on her chest.

Lydia sighs contentedly and tightens her grip.

“Christ I missed you,” Stiles mutters, propping himself up on one elbow as the hand that had snuck under her shirt gently squeezes her side. His eyes are soft, his long eyelashes casting shadows on his cheeks.

“I missed you too,” she replies, her hands moving to cup his face. He nuzzles her palm, closing his eyes and leaning into her touch. She runs the pads of her fingers along his cheekbones, her heart swelling with love and longing as she briefly allows herself to consider the what ifs…

_What if she hadn’t remembered him? What if she hadn’t fought for him? What if she had been forced to live a life without this beautiful boy?_

She blinks away her tears, pulling him down for a chaste kiss. He adjusts his weight slightly and sighs.

“It felt like you were gone forever,” he says, his long exhale ruffling her hair. She chews on the inside of her cheek as she traces his bottom lip with her thumb.

“It was only a week,” Lydia mummers. She and her mother had just returned from a trip to the east coast to visit a few college campuses. The golden light of the sun setting outside her bedroom window glints off the ring on her index finger, projecting a small brush of light onto the wall beside her bed.

“It was the longest week of my life,” Stiles retorts, trying unsuccessfully to catch her thumb in his mouth.

“That’s a bit hyperbolic,” she snorts, her thumb hovering just above his lips. He scrunches his nose and opens one eye to look at her.

“You know, considering the fact that you almost joined the Wild Hunt for eternity,” she continues sardonically, her thumbs caressing his cheeks. Stiles’ hand that had been inching its way up her side to her breasts stills, and he frowns.

“Too soon?” She asks, wiggling her hips. She bites back a laugh as he moans.

“Not fair,” he growls, “I was trying to have a moment.”

She pulls his face towards hers again to press kisses to his cheeks, forehead, nose, and chin. She feels him settling his weight more firmly between her legs as his fingers slide under her bra to cup her breast. Lydia inhales sharply and narrows her eyes.

“I had to visit the campuses before I made any decisions,” she states, licking her lips.

“And?” He asks smugly, dipping down to kiss her.

“And what?” She responds breathlessly, gently pulling his bottom lip between her teeth.

He has the nerve to smirk, his cheeks and neck splotched red. “Have you made your decision?”

She shakes her head and their noses brush.

“Not yet,” she replies quietly. “There are just a lot of things to consider.”

He nods slowly, kissing her jaw. “Like?”

“Well… Stanford, Princeton, and MIT have great research programs,” Lydia hums happily, closing her eyes as Stiles’ sucks her earlobe into his mouth and ruts his hips against hers. “But I could take a class with Eric Lander at MIT and-”

Stiles releases her earlobe with a quiet pop and pauses mid-hip roll.

“What?” She whines distractedly after Stiles doesn’t immediately resume his ministrations. Lydia allows her head to sink more deeply into her pillow so she can study Stiles’ face. His eyes are unfocused, his cheeks ruddy, and his brows furrowed. Her shoulders tense and her hands subconsciously tighten their grip on his firm biceps.

“MIT employs the father of the Human Genome Project?” Stiles finally asks, leaning back a little to meet her confused, worried gaze.

“Yes, but-”

“And you’re having trouble deciding which college to go to?”

Lydia laughs, the tension in her shoulders dissipating at the incredulous look on his face. She hooks one finger under the collar of his t-shirt and brings him down for another kiss. He smiles against her lips and squeezes her breast.

“You’re insufferable,” Lydia whispers with a smirk, her hands tugging up the hem of his t-shirt. Stiles rolls his eyes affectionately, reaching behind his neck to grab his shirt and pull it off per her not-so-subtle hint.

“Like I said,” she continues, pouting a little as her hands move down her boyfriend’s body to pat his ass. “I have a lot of things to consider...”

Stiles grunts a little as one of her hands moves around to cup his erection through his jeans. He quickly tucks his chin into his chest - a move that causes his un-gelled hair to flop adorably over his forehead. His breath catches as Lydia deftly pops open the button of his jeans.

“Including me?” He asks, meeting her hungry gaze with one of his own.

She presses her lips together and allows her gaze to fall to his chest. She watches his abdomen expand and contract with each staccato breath and she feels a sharp pain in her chest.

 _I almost lost you_ , she thinks for the millionth time.

Lydia trails her fingers up and down his chest, watching him through her lashes.

(She remembers the first time they had sex. They had spent the afternoon watching reruns of _Chopped_ on the Food Network and eating junk food. Stiles had said something obscenely sarcastic about one of the chef’s dishes, and she had been struck with the overwhelming desire to fuck him.

They had stumbled to his bedroom between kisses before clumsily removing their clothes and falling onto his bed. It was passionate but hurried, and he didn’t last long. But, when he was inside her, she felt a stillness - a calm - that she had never felt before.)

“Maybe,” Lydia finally says coyly, slowly unzipping his jeans and slipping her hand inside his boxer briefs.

“Such a tease,” he retorts with a small smile, his hips unconsciously thrusting up into her hand as she gently squeezes his balls and strokes his dick.

“No more teasing,” she whispers, using one hand to push his pants down his hips and the other to bunch up her skirt. “I want you inside of me.”

He hisses at her lustful tone, roughly tugging her shirt over her head to press wet, open-mouthed kisses down her flushed chest and stomach.

They are _together._

Stiles clumsily kicks off his jeans as she quickly grabs a condom out of her nightstand drawer and removes her purple, lacy bra. She carefully tears the condom open before rolling it down his length. She can feel his pulse in the twitch of his dick. She hurriedly guides him to her entrance as he runs his wide tongue over one of her nipples.

They are _alive._

“Stiles,” Lydia keens as he slides inside her with a quiet moan. She sighs, relishing the feel of him filling her - of him moving inside her. She kisses his eyes, his cheeks, his nose, his mouth--

They _are._

***

Lydia loves making lists.

She has notebooks upon notebooks full of them. To do lists. Shopping lists. Pro/Con lists. Lists ranking her favorite movies, songs, and books. Lists of places she wants to visit and things she wants to see. Lists outlining what she knows and what she doesn’t...

Her options.

Stiles knows she loves making lists. That’s why he recently “borrowed” a whiteboard from the school for her to use while deciding on which college admittance to formally accept.

She glares at the large whiteboard currently leaning against her bedroom wall and grunts.

 _Perhaps_ loved _is a more appropriate term_ , she muses.

Lydia plops onto her bed with a huff, the messy bun that perches precariously on top of her head wobbling back and forth as she pulls one knee into her chest. Her other leg dangles off the side of the bed, the ball of her foot tapping an erratic rhythm on the floor.

She knows she excels at analyzing, classifying, and cataloging. She can compartmentalize. She can rationalize. She can improvise. Hell, she can even use her voice to kill a man.

“I just can’t make a decision about where I want to go to college,” she mutters frustratedly.

She had applied to seven different schools: Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Brown, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford. She had been offered admittance into all of them - an accomplishment that the pack had taken _very_ seriously in terms of its celebratory potential...

Stiles, with the assistance of her mother, had planned an obnoxiously adorable surprise party for her after she received her last admittance letter. Malia had distracted her with a much-needed trip to the salon while Stiles and Scott decorated her house and her mother fluttered around the kitchen “helping” Mrs. McCall cook.

Lydia would never forget the happiness she felt upon opening her front door and hearing all of the people dearest to her shouting their congratulations, or the veritable rainbow of colored streamers hanging from the ceiling and wrapped around every railing, chair, and lamp.

She had been swarmed the minute she stepped into the door, shuffled from one partygoer to the next by her mother for hugs and well wishes. It had been a fairly small group compared to those that used to attend her infamous parties.

She thought it was a testament to how much she’d grown that she preferred it this way.

Stiles had sidled up to her after she finished greeting her guests, scooping her up in his arms and pressing a sloppy kiss to her cheek. She had laughed, tears of joy pricking the corners of her eyes.

“Congrats, Lyds,” he had whispered, his breath hot on her ear.

“What do you think?” Scott had asked, arms outstretched as if he wanted to embrace their handiwork. She had smiled at his enthusiasm and taken a closer look at the different colored streamers covering nearly every inch of her mother’s foyer and dining room.

Brown. White. Blue. Yellow. Grey. Red.

( _There had been so many shades of red,_ she remembers fondly.)

“We weren’t able to find crimson,” Stiles had admitted sheepishly just as the significance of the colors dawned on her.

“They’re the school colors,” she had gasped, glancing back at Stiles. He had grinned, his nose scrunching and his eyes twinkling. And there, in the foyer of her mother’s house, she had felt for the first time like maybe she didn’t need to plan the rest of her life as long as Stiles Stilinski always smiled at her like that...

Lydia rests her chin on her knee and narrows her eyes, carefully rolling a “borrowed” dry erase marker between her hands.

Her “Lydia Martin is a Fucking Genius” party (Stiles’ enthusiastic moniker, not hers) had occurred weeks ago yet, much to her mother’s chagrin, she still had not made her final decision. Her mother tried to chalk her indecisiveness up to nostalgia; she felt Lydia was avoiding decision-making about the future by choosing to reminisce about the past.

 _If only it were that simple_ , Lydia thinks with a frown.

In actuality, she was experiencing the exact opposite. She hadn’t been able to make a decision because she couldn’t stop thinking about the future.

Her future.

Stiles’ future.

 _Their_ future.

Lydia thinks there must have been a time before her parents’ divorce when she believed in love and in love stories. After all, she remembers listening to her grandmother read _The Little Mermaid_ and wishing that one day she would love someone _that much_. Then her parents divorced, and love didn’t seem that important anymore. Control, power, and status were more tangible - more accessible. Plus, the concept of love could be explained away by simply biology; she could exist without love.

Then, everything changed.

She kissed Stiles in a moment of panic and desperation. She wanted to help _him_ \- the boy who recognized and admired the smart, resilient girl beneath her immaculately crafted facade. In that instant, she wanted to be the one to hold the fractured pieces of their world together _for him_. So, she took his face in her hands and firmly pressed her lips to his.

Now, she can’t fathom a future without him, and it terrifies her.

Lydia tosses the dry erase marker across her room in frustration and scoots backwards into the middle of her bed,  wincing a little as she hears the marker hits the wall behind her with a loud _thwack_.

“Lydia?” Her mother calls from downstairs, her voice slightly muffled by her closed bedroom door.

“Just dropped one of my books,” she shouts in response, drawing both of her knees into her chest and gritting her teeth.

 _Yep,_ loved _is definitely a more appropriate term_ , she thinks, glaring at the whiteboard.

She had eliminated Harvard, Yale, and Brown fairly quickly. They were her backup schools ultimately, as their mathematics programs were ranked 12th, 40th, and 44th in the nation, respectively. She had then spent _hours_ compiling comprehensive pro/con lists for her four remaining choices.

Cornell and Princeton had more cons than pros; so, she felt fairly confident that she could draft her “thanks-but-no-thanks” letters for those two programs. However, deciding between MIT and Stanford was proving more difficult than she anticipated.

Lydia carefully leans to the side and pulls her phone out of her back pocket. Her thumb hovers over the home button as she takes a moment to admire her current lock screen. It's a picture of Stiles wearing a Darth Vader apron, standing in front of the stove in his kitchen, and making her a grilled cheese sandwich. They had been comparing theories about the town’s most recent supernatural threat. He was in the middle of making a point, and enthusiastically waving his favorite red spatula, when she had sneakily snapped the picture.

 _I love that picture_ , she thinks, pressing her lips together in a small smile.

 _I love him_.

Lydia unlocks her phone, quickly scrolls through her contacts to “Lover Extraordinaire” (another Stiles’ moniker), and presses call. He picks up on the second ring.

“Shit Scott, you just destroyed that dude!”

There is a brief shuffling sound and a tell-tale _thump_.

“Stiles?”

“Sorry,” he replies, a little breathless. “Dropped my phone.”

“Again?” She teases, picking at a loose thread on her comforter.

“Ha, so funny,” Stiles says sarcastically, his voice slightly muffled. She imagines him sitting in one of Scott’s beanbag chairs, his phone tucked loosely between his ear and shoulder. He most likely has his long legs propped up on the coffee table.

 _Scott’s mom is going to kill him_ , Lydia thinks with a smirk.

“Is that Lydia?” Scott asks over the sound of distant gunfire. The boys must be breaking in the new television and gaming console Scott bought for his dorm room at UC Davis. He doesn’t wait for Stiles to respond in the affirmative.

“Hi, Lydia!” Scott shouts excitedly. “Have you made your decision?”

Scott’s voice gets closer to the receiver, which means he’s paused the game and scooted closer to Stiles or that he-

“Jesus, Scott, you’ve gotten heavy.”

Decided to sit on him.

“Hi, Scott,” she says warmly, pulling one of her pillows into her lap. “I’m getting close. I’ve narrowed my choices down to two.”

“MIT and Stanford,” Stiles responds knowingly.

“Yep,” she says, popping the “p.”

“Well, you know which one I prefer,” Stiles says, his tone sly.

Lydia inhales sharply, biting her lip.

He had been banned from assisting her with her pro/con lists after suggesting that she make her decision based on the how quickly she came when he spelled the name of the school with his tongue on her clit. Alas, while that afternoon had been _incredibly_ rewarding, it still hadn’t led to her making a decision.

“Which one?” Scott asks.

“The Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” Stiles replies smugly. She can practically _hear_ him grinning.

“Dude, why are you smiling like that? Nevermind, I don’t want to know,” Scott says. The beanbag chair rustles and Lydia pictures Scott climbing off Stiles’ lap. “I’m going to get a snack. You want anything?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, momentarily distracted. “Could you bring me some popcorn and a Dr. Pepper? Oh, and some chips? And, maybe a piece of that coffee cake your mom made?”

Scott’s laughter grows fainter as he walks away.

“Hungry?”

“Thinking about cunnilingus always gives me an appetite,” Stiles deadpans.

“So _fucking_ funny,” she replies breathily.

“Ooh, you know I love it when you use dirty words.”

“Stiles Stilinski,” she says primly, rolling her eyes. “I didn’t call you to have phone sex.”

“But-”

“I need you to help me make my final decision about school.”

Lydia tries to say it nonchalantly, but the sentence comes out in a rush. She glances at the whiteboard, her attention drawn to the short sentence scrawled at the top of each con list in her large, loopy script.

 _No Stiles_.

Her eyes fill with tears and her breath catches.

“Lydia?” Stiles asks, the concern in his voice cutting through the static of the phone. “Everything okay?”

He noticed.

 _Of course_ he noticed.

“Yeah,” she manages to croak, grimacing a little at the vulnerability in her voice. “I’m just-”

“You want me to come over?”

And, suddenly, she’s struck with a sense of dread. Thin tendrils of anxiety and shame weave themselves between her ribs and her chest constricts. She looks up at her ceiling and closes her eyes. A teardrop falls down her cheek, and she licks her lips.

_What’s going to happen if I decide to go to Stanford and we’re 2,850 miles away from each other? Would he just drop everything to be with me? Everything he’s worked so hard to achieve?_

“Lyds?”

_Would I be selfish enough to let him?_

“No, I’m okay,” Lydia finally replies, clearing her throat. “Just tired. Tell Scott I said bye?”

“Yeah, okay,” Stiles replies slowly, still unconvinced.

“I’ll talk to you later,” she says quickly, pressing the heel of her palm against her forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he says, disappointed and confused.

Lydia ends the call, slipping her phone back into her pocket and sliding off her bed to stand once again in front of the whiteboard.

 _No Stiles_.

The sentence is barely legible through her tears. She reaches up, using the pads of her fingers to erase it.

The ink stains her fingertips red.

***

She’s an artist creating a masterpiece, an astronomer discovering unknown constellations, an archaeologist uncovering secrets on the salty landscape of his skin. She traces the familiar pattern of moles that speckle his cheek and neck with the tip of her tongue as he presses open-mouthed kisses along her shoulder.

“Stiles,” she whispers into the crook of his neck like a prayer, her lips pressed against his pulse point to feel the hum of his heart.

“Fuck,” he groans in response, his back arching a little as she increases her pace. “You feel so good, Lyds. So fucking tight and wet.”

“Touch me,” Lydia demands.

_Bring me back to myself. Be my distraction. Make me forget about the future for awhile._

He slides his hands up her thighs, squeezing her ass before continuing up to her breasts. He grasps them both firmly, rubbing his thumbs in circles around her nipples. She gasps, biting her lip as her pussy begins to ache with anticipation. Stiles pulls her chest towards him, lifting his head to suck one of her nipples into his mouth. He presses her clit with his thumb and she cries out, closing her eyes as he begins to rub it and suck more forcefully on her tit.

Lydia comes silently, her mouth slack and eyes shut. She feels Stiles’ hands around her waist holding her in place as he thrusts into her, his fingertips rough and his palms calloused. He follows her quickly with a drawn-out grunt. When she opens her eyes, she finds him breathing heavily with one of his arms covering his eyes.

“Fuck,” he repeats.

She watches his chest heaving and feels his dick shudder a little inside her.

“Fuck,” Lydia echoes, gently rolling off him to lay on her back and catch her breath. Stiles sits up and scoots to the edge of the bed.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, standing up to dispose of the condom. She props herself up on her elbows to watch him, admiring the way his deltoids flex as he carefully rolls the condom off and throws it in the trash can beside her desk. When he turns, she sees him glance at the newly erased whiteboard and smile.

Warmth fills her chest and her heart swells.

“Come here,” she says affectionately, tilting her head. Stiles slides back into bed, nuzzling into her neck and sloppily kissing her cheek. She only pretends to nap, choosing instead to focus on the sound of his slow, even breaths and steady heartbeat.

It’s only later, after he’s quietly snoring and she’s starting to fall asleep, that Lydia notices the smudges of dry erase marker on his neck and chin.

***

Lydia licks the seal of her admittance acceptance letter to MIT and adds it to the pile of outgoing mail on the kitchen counter with a flourish.

“Ready to celebrate?” Stiles asks, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and kissing her neck. She leans back into his chest and nods.

“Let’s go,” he says excitedly, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the front door.

 _MIT is her_ dream _school. It has a robust mathematics program and more than a dozen world-renowned researchers that can assist her with her analysis of the Riemann Hypothesis._

She watches Stiles trip happily down the porch stairs towards his jeep and her smile falters a little.

_So what if it’s 2,412.7 miles closer to George Washington University than Stanford?_

**Author's Note:**

> [Melissa](http://wildest-dreams88.tumblr.com/), thank you for putting up with my ridiculous writing process. I drive myself crazy! Your feedback has been consistently fantastic. I am so glad that you volunteered to be my beta!
> 
> [Ashlynn](http://wernotthings.tumblr.com/), you know me better than anyone. Thank you for encouraging me to explore this story and these characters. You are my anchor, sister, and I love you. Stay gold.
> 
> [Rachel](http://rongasm.tumblr.com/), I admire you so much. Our friendship and your feedback mean the world to me. You are incredible and I love you, lady.
> 
> You can find me at madgrad2011 on [twitter](https://twitter.com/madgrad2011) and [tumblr](http://madgrad2011.tumblr.com/).


End file.
